Those are "poses" or "avatars" - your image that is used
to represent you. We want everyone to express themselves as much as
possible, so we encourage everyone to be creative, unique, and be
yourself. That's why we allow you to upload your own poses. However,
there are rules and guidelines you need to abide by when uploading your
pose.

I want a pose of my own! How?

To obtain a pose, you can do 1 of 4 things. You may create your own, pay
someone else to make you one(called "Customs"), buy a pose someone is
selling(called "Premades"), or use a free pose that someone else has
labeled as free for all(called "Freebies"). Once you have your pose, you
upload it. (check the pose
uploading tutorial for help). Once you've properly uploaded your
pose, sit back and relax. The Art Review Team checks poses constantly,
and chances are your pose will be reviewed within a day or two, if not
within hours. However, poses can be held up to about a week if it is
under discussion.

The background must be transparent, or "see-through/invisible". To do
this it must be a different color from any color within the pose
itself. Some programs will allow you to set the transparency, and
others will delete colors entirely. If you upload a pose with an
opaque background, or if any of the colors within the pose are also
transparent, it will not be acceptable.

All poses(excluding AFK poses) must always be mirrored. By this we
mean, you upload a left facing pose and a right facing pose. You
simply have to flip the image - it does not need to be redrawn. This
allows you to "Turn Around" in-chat.

Poses with loose pixels(pixels outside of the pose) will not be
accepted. Even 1 loose pixel is enough to have a pose rejected. In
some cases, loose pixels may go along with the pose(fleas, shadow,
fading effect, smoke effect, pose noticing loose pixels, etc.). Then
and then only are they acceptable.

All poses must be within a certain size limit. These limits are both
physical pixel limits as well as more subjective limits which take into
consideration the avatar species and how the avatar is posed.

If an avatar is too large or too small, it will look bad in the chat.
Poses must be at least 25 pixels in height and width. They can't be more
than 600 pixels in height or in width. PLEASE NOTE that images for most
creatures (wolves, tigers, bears, etc) would be considerably smaller
than the 600 pixel limit, and they would probably be less than 350 pixels
in height / width.

These charts display the more subjective limits of our sizing
standards:

Domestic/Wild Felines:

Feral Wolves:

Anthro:

As mentioned previously, avatar sizes are somewhat subjective. For
example, different types of felines will vary in size. Also, though
your pose is within the max size height, it may be proportionally
too big. Make sure your pose isn't too bulky and certain areas aren't
too large!

The MAXIMUM pixel size is 600 by 600 but most critters will be about half
of that (at most 300 pixels in height or widthg). The MINIMUM pixel size
is 25 by 25 and should be used for teensy things like bugs, pixies, etc.

Although Cats Paw Island does not require shading, if you do try it, please follow these guidelines below.
The purpose is to
give the appearance of weight and depth. You must have at least one layer
of shading (darkened areas). Highlights are not required, but highly
encouraged to keep your pose from looking flat. Shading must coincide with
where the light would and would not shine. Randomly placing shadows on
your pose, without regard to where the light is coming from will not be
accepted. If you put thought into where the light would and would not hit,
you should have very little problems with your poses being accepted.

Poses are allowed to be solid color. They do not have to have
additional colors, because your character may happen to be all white.
You are allowed to have markings from different animals. Excessive
coloring, however, is frowned upon. For instance, you cannot have a
solid rainbow avatar.

All poses must have a solid, dark, natural outline. It is generally
recommended that the outline is either black, very dark grey, or a dark
shade color of the pose it's around. Lighter outlines are not preferred
as they tend to appear to have a halo effect.

Everyone has their own drawing style. This is perfectly understandable.
However, keep in mind that there are set anatomy and physical
limitations. That being true, your style may be unacceptable at times,
and need to be adjusted to comply with our standards.

Bloody poses, rotting poses, morbid poses, and gorey poses, are only
acceptable during Halloween. After the holiday they are removed from
everyone's pose list. A small amount of blood is acceptable. Any sort of
wounds that appear self-inflicted are not acceptable. An exception is
“clean” zombie poses (ie: they cannot have flesh, blood, gore, or any
other type of disturbing imagery).

We strongly encourage proper anatomy. There are several good tutorials on
our forum, as well as other sites, such as DeviantArt. While it doesn't
have to be perfect, please realize that the better the anatomy, the
easier it will be to determine the species. We allow many species on
Cats Paw Island, but most are restricted to private rooms. If we can't tell what
species it is supposed to be, it will be rejected.

All poses must appear 80% of an acceptable species. Usually up to 2
major mods are acceptable. If it's an extreme mod, where it is hard to
determine if there is still any remaining acceptable species in the
pose, it usually isn't acceptable. Some mods do not go over well and are
unacceptable, such as taurs, wolves with beaks, etc..

You are allowed to either be a plushie, or have plushies in your poses.
Plushes must be clearly inanimate or they will be rejected. The easiest
way to achieve this is adding stitches. There is no limit on the number
of plushies allowed in a pose.

Large domestic pets are acceptable on Cats Paw Island, such as a domestic
dog or cat. If it's a small pet,
there is no limit to how many you can have in a pose. Larger pets should
be limited to 2 per character.

Gag poses, or "joke poses", are poses that are meant to be drawn with
simplicity or poor aesthetic quality. Gag and Mini poses require little
shading, aesthetic quality, highlighting, or anatomy. All other
standards still apply.

We are extremely lenient with AFK (away) poses. You may have any quality
pose. You may have just a feather, a sillouette, a computer, anything. The
main requirement is the letters "AFK" must be written somewhere around
your pose, so that it doesn't appear that you have a pose that'd normally
be unacceptable.

Currently, Cats Paw Island's Art Review Team (or simply ART) members are:
Rivaille, Fai, Nolani, AutumnRain and Jager.
The ART's job is to review uploaded poses and rooms. They've been
trained to accept or reject submitted art based on the set guidelines,
and protect against art-theft. Like any other administrators, all of the
ART are real people, and deserve your respect and patience.
As such, please do NOT ask them to review your pose or your room!
They cannot get to the poses every day, and constant asking them to upload
your poses or rooms or badgering them will not make them any faster!
Please understand they try their hardest, but do not cater to you.
(Also understand, that this can fall under harassment!)

Art theft is when you take a piece of art work, drawing or photo, and
claim / use it as your own personal work when you are not the true
owner. By uploading a pose, you are taking responsibility for it and you
will be banned if you commit theft. You need permission to use other
people's artwork. Taking someone's art and modifying a couple things on
it is still theft. You are allowed to use references as long as you do
not trace it. No one can copyright a position, but if your pose outline
matches up exactly to a photo or artwork you will be banned. Some people
sell poses, and if you try to use one without paying for it, that would
be art theft. You cannot upload copyrighted characters (like Digimon�
adoptables) but you can dress up your cat in a Digimon� costume.
You cannot use found clipart or images from Google.

Art theft can be many things, so please clear all questions up ahead of
time with the ART, rather than risk the consequences. Even if you do or
do not contact the ART prior to uploading, please make sure to fill out
the permission explanation box to ensure a quick review. We take art
theft so seriously, it has special series of consequences. For your very
first offense of confirmed art theft, you are given a warning. Your next
strike results in a 3 day ban. Third, is 2 weeks, and then last strike
is a permanent ban.

Questions? Ask the ART via forums or email. You may also decide to
contact them personally via forum PM, chat messaging system, or in the
chat. But please note that the ART are people too, and they deserve
respect. Do not harass the ART. Thank you!